Bratsk - a city on the Angara River

This industrial city is a pretty important base for assimilation of northern parts of Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East.

Bratsk is a city in the Irkutsk region
which is on the Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir. The population is
not so big in comparison to other Russian towns at the 260,000 mark. The actual
city that you can see today was formed in 1956 thanks to construction of Bratsk
hydro power station, which is to the north of an ancient settlement of Bratsk
which founded in 1631 as a jail.

But from parts that used to be jails, the
Bratsk of today is one of the largest industrial and economic centres in the
Irkutsk region and Eastern Siberia. Bratsk is actually a pretty important base
for assimilation of northern parts of Eastern Siberia and the Far East too.

Bratsk is located in what you could call
severe climatic conditions, but despite this, its economic and geographical
location are favourable enough and have developed infrastructure, highways,
lines of electricity transmission, an international airport and pretty high
resource potential.

If you’re wondering just how severe the
climate conditions are, then you can expect mainly dry winters and frosty and
hot and dry summers. The average January temperature is - 24 degrees so make
sure you wrap up warm if you decide to visit around that time.

As for the city name Bratsk, a lot of
people, Russian people at least, think it comes from the Russian word for
'brother' ('brat'), since they sound the same. In reality it actually comes
from ‘bratskiye lyudi’, which is an old name for the Buryat people.

Highlights
of Bratsk

Well one thing that’s a bit different in
Bratsk is the street names and statues. Unlike in Moscow, where most of the
communist-esque street names were changed after 1990, in Bratsk the street
names stayed mostly unchanged. Also, you can still find plenty of Lenin statues
to take pictures of and with. Originally the Siberian cities simply could not
afford the large expenses incurred by renaming most of the city streets (and
the addresses of all the institutions and companies along with them). But now
they came to the conclusion that the old names and statues are part of their
history and should be kept as they are. For some, statues of the past are cool
tourist attractions.

Speaking of other attractions though,
probably one of the main ones is the Bratsk hydro power plant. The height of
its separate installations are 125 meters high and the reservoir made by the
plant takes up 5470 sqm, which makes it one of the biggest reservoirs in
Russia.

Another thing you should definitely not
miss is Angara Village. It’s an open-air ethnographic museum featuring a rare
wooden watchtower and other buildings. It’s 12 km away from the centre of
Bratsk and as I mentioned, you can see reconstructed homes and get a feel for
what an old, traditional Russian village used to look like.

Related:

One of the nice museums in the city is the
Bratsk art exhibition hall, so if you felt like some good old fashion art
museum action, then this would be a good place for you to see.

If you feel like getting a bit more active,
you can head out about 70km from Bratsk and enjoy some skiing on Pikhtovy
mountin (Пихтовая гора). Apart from traditional skiing here a new snowboard
park has recently been opened near the slope and it has a half pipe too if you
feel like brushing up on your skills.

You could say that Bratsk’s history begins
in 1623 when a unit of 40 soldiers arrived there. This was really quite an
incredible trek, since back then this was all unknown territory. Once they had
arrived, they were ordered to try and collect tax from the locals, in fact in
1636 the first fort was built there at the confluence of the Oka and Angara
rivers to enforce the tax collection from natives. By the 1640's there were
already some peasants at the fort growing crops and in the late 1600s, a
monastery was built at the fort. More people began to settle, gradually forming
more communities and homesteads. In 1805, the newly established Bratsk
komissarstvo (administrative unit) had 5210 inhabitants.

After the fortress lost its military
importance the settlement received the name of Bratsko-Ostrozhnoye or sometimes
simply Bratskoye which then later became Bratsk.

By 1910, there were 60 communities with
14,006 people and interestingly enough this included over 5000 political
exiles.

Cutting to the last century, the city saw a
boost during the Second World War when there was an increase in industrial
activity in Siberia, as Soviet industry was moved to the lands east of the
Urals. After the war's end, development slowed, but not for too long.

On the late 1940s the Gulag Angara prison
labour camp was constructed near Bratsk, which could hold up to 44,000
prisoners who were used for projects such as the construction of the railways
and other hard labour.

A more positive and major industrial event
that happened to the city was the construction of Bratsk hydro power station
which if you remember, I mentioned just a bit earlier. Once the decision was
made to build the Bratsk dam and hydroelectric station there was a massive
influx of new inhabitants. During their first year, some of them even had to
live in tents.

The city of Bratsk as it stands today was
officially formed in 1955 when it was joined by some other groups of
settlements.

Today Bratsk is one of the major sports
centres of the Siberian federal region. It’s actually got over 275 sports
objects including 81 gyms, 5 swimming pools and 4stadiums. Over 17.5 percent of
the population practice or play sports and it is around 44,500 people.

So there you have what you could call the
highlights of the city’s history. Although Bratsk is, in essence, industrial,
there are still a good few things to see and do there.